FEROCITY OF THE KILLER “WHALE” 151 
whale and her calf, in a lagoon on the coast of California, in 
the spring of 1858. The whale was of the California gray 
species, and her young was grown to three times the bulk of 
the largest Killers engaged in the contest, which lasted an 
hour or more. They made alternate assaults upon the old 
whale and her offspring, finally killing the latter, which sank 
to the bottom where the water was five fathoms deep. Dur- 
ing the struggle the mother became nearly exhausted, having 
received several deep wounds about: the mouth and lips. As 
soon as their prize had settled to the bottom, the three Killers 
descended, bringing up large pieces of flesh in their mouths, 
which they devoured after coming to the surface. While 
gorging themselves in this wise, the old whale made her 
escape, leaving a track of gory water behind.” 
The swiftness of the Killer is very great, and to all small 
cetaceans this savage monster is a genuine terror. An 
eminent naturalist named D. F. Eschricht, who devoted 
much attention to the cetaceans, states that he knew one of 
these animals to capture and swallow alive, and in quick 
succession, four small porpoises, while from the stomach of 
another Killer, only sixteen feet long, were taken fourteen 
seals! In Bering Sea the Killer destroys large numbers of 
fur seals, and, when walruses were plentiful, even made war 
-on them also. On the Atlantic coast it was, until recently, a 
~ common occurrence for a band of Killers to chase large schools 
of blackfish and porpoises into shallow water. They also 
persecuted the horse-mackerel, or tunny. The Killer is 
widely distributed, and his deeds of destruction have made 
him widely known and feared. 
